Australia’s billionaires are a ‘threat to democracy’ says top politician

In 2010, an advertising campaign paid for by the mining industry raised fears
the new tax would destabilise Australia’s economy; though the campaign cost
only $22 million, it is credited with leading to a slump in Labor’s polls
that paved the way for the deposing of Kevin Rudd as prime minister. A
revamped tax was introduced last year but it effectively reduced the tax
rate on resources super-profits from 40 per cent to 30 per cent – a saving
for the mining companies of hundreds of millions of dollars.

“The infamous billionaires’ protest against the mining tax would have
been laughed out of town in the Australia I grew up in, and yet it received
a wide and favourable reception two years ago,” Mr Swan said.

“To be blunt, the rising power of vested interests is undermining our
equality and threatening our democracy … For every Andrew Forrest who
wails about high company taxes and then admits to not paying any, there are
a hundred Australian business people who held on to their employees and
worked with government to keep the doors of Australian business open during
the GFC.”

Ms Rinehart, Australia’s wealthiest person, has also lobbied heavily against
the government’s carbon tax, which will levy $23 per ton on carbon pollution
from the country’s heaviest emitters. She has sponsored a variety of climate
change deniers, reportedly including Britain’s Lord Christopher Monckton,
who has made frequent appearances in Australia.

The conservative Opposition attacked the article, saying Labor always “falls
back on class warfare and the politics of envy”.

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